Gunston Hall

If you have the time to visit some of the other historic houses near Mount Vernon, one place that deserves a visit along with Woodlawn and the Pope-Leighey House is Gunston Hall. It’s the home of one of the lesser known Founding Fathers, George Mason.

Gunston Hall

He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and House of Delegates through the 1760’s and 70’s.  He wrote drafts for the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution, both adopted in 1776, which were the first such documents in the colonies.  He was also a delegate to the Federal Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 that created the Constitution, and was one of its most frequent speakers. But in the end he refused to support the Constitution when it was adopted, in part because it didn’t include a “Declaration of Rights”. The Bill of Rights adopted by the first Congress in 1791 is based on Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights.

In 1755 at age 30, Mason decided to build a house for his growing family. To help create something special, he brought two craftsmen, who were indentured servants, from England, William Buckland and William Bernard Sears. As architect and master carver they brought knowledge of the latest styles from London and created something unique in the design of Gunston Hall.

When you first arrive at the property there is a good sized visitor center where you can watch a short film about George Mason and see some exhibits about Mason’s career and his life at Gunston Hall. Then it’s a short walk to do the tour at the house. From the outside the house has a relatively simple design, but it’s when you get inside that you realize it’s a special place.

The tour begins at the large twelve foot-wide Central Passage, which links the land side door to the door that opens to the riverfront. Conservators have used a bright yellow and gray period wallpaper design with a Roman-like architectural design that shows the early American’s interest in classical design.  The tour then goes into the rooms that would have been used as the parlor and formal dining room. The “Palladian” room has a rich red wallpaper and intricate woodcarving around the built-in wall cabinets and fireplace. The “Chinese” room has a kind of Asian motif in the carving on the far wall and is thought to be unique in Colonial houses in America. The walls and trim are painted in a rich yellow color. On the other side of the Central Passage are the Little Parlor, used by the family and by Mason himself as an office. And next to it is the Chamber, the bedroom used by George and his wife. Upstairs there are six good-sized bed chambers and two smaller rooms that would have been used by his children and any guests.

On the river side of the house is a boxwood alley, running along the path that leads out towards the Potomac. These were planted during Mason’s life and aren’t trimmed much for fear of damaging these very old plants.

There are also a number of recreated outbuildings including a kitchen, dairy, smokehouse, laundry and schoolhouse. And there is also information about the slaves that would have worked on the plantation; by 1780 Mason owned nearly 100 slaves working on four nearby farms.

There are numerous public programs held throughout the year which can be found at the Gunston Hall information-rich website.

Links: Official website for Gunston Hall

          Short YouTube video about George Mason

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

It’s hard to imagine that as beloved as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is now, that it was once referred to by critics as “the black gash of shame”. Just to the northeast of the Lincoln Memorial, it is very different from war memorials created in earlier times. One writer has recently called it “the most controversial and brilliantly successful works of public art in American history”, and many agree.

Vietnam Veteran's Memorial

The 58,000 plus names of those who died or remain missing from the Vietnam War, without rank or unit designation are all inscribed on 140 black granite panels. The panels start out very short on the ends and are ten feet tall at the center as the walkway in front of the panels descends below ground. The two sets of panels form a large “v” shape and the highly polished black granite reflects the images of the visitors, looking at the names.

The names are arranged chronologically based on their date of death. The earliest deaths from 1959 are recorded at the top of the center-east panel go to the last east panel and then start again at the far west panel and ending at the top of the center-west panel with names from 1975. The overall effect that the Wall creates is deeply moving, even healing for many who visit.

Mementos, letters, flowers and other items are left along the base of the Wall and all the non-organic material is collected and stored by the National Park Service. There are podiums nearby with printed directories for locating names on the numbered panels of the wall.  And visitors can take impressions of the names by pressing a piece of paper over the name and rubbing it with a pencil.

Not far away is a bronze statue, created by Frederick Hart named The Three Soldiers, depicting a White, Black and Hispanic American male soldiers. Nearby the sculpture is a memorial plaque honoring those “who served in the Vietnam War and died later as a result of their service” and just to the east, is another bronze sculpture, The Vietnam Women’s Memorial, designed by Glenna Goodacre, depicting three uniformed women with a wounded soldier.  

The inspiration for the memorial came from Jan Scruggs who had served as an infantryman and was wounded during the Vietnam War. He eventually raised over $8 million to build the memorial. Because the war had been so politically divisive his idea was to create a memorial that would focus on warriors and would be apolitical. A design competition was held that set four major criteria that included that it contain all the names of the dead and missing from the war.

Over 1400 entries had been submitted by the deadline in 1981 and the winner was Maya Lin, a 21-year-old Yale University architecture student. As news of the design got out, there was a great deal of criticism that it was too abstract and reflected no heroism on the part of the soldiers in the war. To satisfy the criticism, before the Wall was completed, it was decided to add the realistic sculpture of three soldiers and a flag.

The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Fund is now planning to create an educational center with information about the war and the names on the wall. It will be built underground to preserve the landscape of the area near the memorial.

Links: Official website of the the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

          Studio 360, American Icons: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial

          YouTube video of Maya Lin talking about the Memorial

          Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund website

Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial, the national monument to honor America’s 16^th president, is located near the Vietnam and Korean Veterans Memorials at the west end of the National Mall. Designed by New York architect, Henry Bacon, the memorial is based on the design of a Greek temple with 36 Doric columns, representing all the states, North and South, at the time of Lincoln’s death.  All 48 state names that made up the country when the memorial was completed in 1922, are inscribed around the top of the outside of the memorial and a plaque was added later recognizing Alaska and Hawaii.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

Up a long set of steps and inside the chamber is the impressive nineteen-foot realistic sculpture of the sitting President Lincoln. When facing the Lincoln statue, on the right wall Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is inscribed, and on the left, the Gettysburg Address. Above the inscriptions on each side are murals painted by Jules Guerin representing emancipation and reunification. When facing out towards the mall from the chamber, on the left there is a small bookstore through a door off the chamber. On the other side is an elevator that goes down to the plaza level and opens into a small exhibit area with photographs and information about the construction of the memorial and some of the demonstrations that have been held at the memorial over the years.

The architect, Bacon befitting the idea of national unity, used a variety of stones in the construction. Massachusetts granite, Colorado marble, Tennessee pink marble, Indiana limestone, and Alabama marble were all used in different parts of the memorial The Lincoln statue itself is made of 28 pieces of Georgia marble.

An African-American, Robert Moton, gave the key-note address to the segregated attendees at the dedication of in 1922, but it would take an event in 1939 to make the memorial a focal point for civil rights demonstrations in Washington D.C. A proposal had been made for the well-known African-American singer Marian Anderson to perform at the DAR Constitution Hall in Washington. The Daughters of the American Revolution would not allow the performance because of her race. Eleanor Roosevelt, with the help of her husband, the President, arranged for her to perform on Easter Sunday morning at the Lincoln Memorial where some 75,000 people attended. Then in 1963, the memorial’s most famous event occurred when Martin Luther King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington. The spot where King stood on the steps of the memorial is engraved. It could be argued that the Lincoln Memorial commemorates the two most important speeches in American history, The Gettysburg Address of 1863 and Martin Luther King’s speech of 1963. President Obama spoke at the memorial on the 50th anniversary of the King speech.

Two of the most discussed urban legends regarding the monument are that the Robert E. Lee can be seen in the hair on the back of Lincoln’s head (not likely) and that Lincoln’s hands are making the shape of his initials “A” and “L” in sign language.  There might be something to this idea, the sculpture, Daniel Chester French, had a deaf son, and Lincoln had signed the bill authorizing Gallaudet University, created to educate deaf students, to grant college degrees. There memorial is open 24 hours a day, park rangers are on duty until midnight and there is no fee for visitors.

Links: Official website of the Lincoln Memorial

          You Tube video of Marian Anderson

          You Tube video of Martin Luther King's speech

National Gallery of Art

Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art has to be considered one of the world’s great art museum. In The Art Newspaper’s survey it ranked 8^th in terms of the most visited art museum in the world in 2012. In 1937 industrialist and art collector Andrew W. Mellon gave some 150 works of art valued at $40 million and $10 million in cash to create a national art museum to the U.S government. The collection now has more than 130,000 works of Western art from the middle ages up to the present.

National Gallery of Art, West Building

The museum is composed of two buildings connected by an underground concourse and an outdoor sculpture garden. The original (West) building was opened to the public in 1941. The East Building, designed by I.M. Pei and opened in 1978, is considered one of the great works of modern architecture in the U.S. I will write about it and the sculpture garden in other posts to this blog.

The collection is particularly rich in Italian, Dutch and French impressionist paintings and American, British, Flemish, Spanish, and German paintings are well represented. In 2012 there was a new permanent installation of 18^th and early 19^th century American furniture in the West Building. The website here, shows 45 works as the highlights of the museum’s collection and there are also three Less than an Hour? guides for the paintings in each building and the sculpture collection. The audio guide with the Director’s Tour, which is free, has commentary on over 130 pieces. There is also a Your Art mobile app for iPhone and iPod Touch available for free in the iTunes App Store. 

On my recent visit I decided to make my own top ten list. This is obviously subjective, but it is a nice representative list of Western art history all-stars. The works are listed in chronological order. All are paintings except for the Degas which is a sculpture.

The Annunciation, Jan van Eyck, c.1434/1436

Ginevra de’Benci, Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1474/1478

The Alba Madonna, Raphael, c. 1510

Venus with a Mirror, Titian, c. 1555

Self-Portrait, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1659

The Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, Edgar Degas, 1871-1881 (bronze sculpture)

Boy in a Red Waistcoat, Paul Cezanne, 1888-1890

Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh, 1889

Family of Saltimbanques, Pablo Picasso, 1905

Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), Jackson Pollock, American, 1950

You’ll note that this list includes the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci on permanent display anywhere in North or South America.

The most important 18^th century American work in the collection is Copley’s Watson and the Shark. Another significant American work currently on display is the full-sized plaster cast of Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth, considered by some to be the most important American sculptural work of the 19^th century. It commemorates the African-American soldiers of that regiment that served in the Civil War and their white commanding officer who was killed in the Battle of Fort Wagner in South Carolina.

There are several options for food and shopping and the cafeteria and one of the gift shops are in the Concourse which runs underground between the East and West buildings. Across from the cafeteria is a cascading waterfall in front of a large plate glass window and which then leads an artistic installation called the Multiverse, a complex light sculpture by the artist Leo Villareal that runs 200 feet along the length of the two moving sidewalks that connect the buildings. Visitors should note that the East Building will be closed for renovations for three years starting in December of 2013, although the atrium will remain open much of the modern art collection will not be on view. Some of the paintings from the modern art collection have been moved to several of the ground floor galleries at the west end of the West Building.

Links: Official website of the National Gallery of Art

National Air and Space Museum

According to the people that track these things, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. was the third most visited museum in the world in 2012 after the Louvre and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. When I went on one of the docent tours, the guide pointed out that sometimes during the busy season the museum is so crowded it’s hard to move around. It has to be considered one of the must-see places to see in DC.

National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC

Walking into the museum from the Mall side, the grand hall is impressive. It’s a huge room with aircraft hanging from the ceiling, spacecraft spread out around the floor and several tall rockets on one side wall. It’s called the Milestones of Flight exhibit and has many important historic airplanes and spacecraft.

On the floor level are the Mercury Friendship 7, John Glenn’s capsule, Gemini IV, from which Edward White II took the first American spacewalk and the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia that carried Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins on their voyage to the moon in 1969. There’s also a piece of moon rock that visitors are encouraged to touch that came from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.  Hanging from the ceiling are the first plane to fly faster than the speed of sound, the Bell X-1, the North American X-15 and Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis. There is some recognition of the Soviet Union’s early accomplishments in space flight; a replica of the Sputnik I hangs almost in the middle of the large atrium. Along the wall are two Cold War artifacts, a Soviet SS-20 and Pershing-II missile.

From a historical point of view the museums most important holding is probably the 1903 Wright Flyer, “the first heavier-than-air, powered aircraft to make a sustained controlled flight with a pilot aboard.” There’s an exhibit area with the plane and reproductions of the kite and gliders the Wright’s built to help them study the principals of flight that would lead to their remarkable invention.  Nearby is the Barron Hilton Pioneers of Flight Gallery that has the first planes to complete a transcontinental flight, an around the world flight and the bright red Lockheed 5B Vega that Amelia Earhart flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932.

At one end of the museum is an exhibit of six military unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) built during the last twenty years that point to one area of aviation that will likely see lots of future development. And for sci-fi fans, in the back of the lower level of the gift shop is the 11 foot model of the starship Enterpise used in filming the original Star Trek television series. 

There are twenty-one exhibit galleries, including ones on space travel, the planets, the world wars, sea-air operations, commercial aviation and much more, so if you wanted to really take it all in, you could easily spend a whole day in the museum. There’s a large food court and one end, a planetarium, IMAX theater, simulator rides and a large gift shop. So there’s lots to see and do for everyone in the family, including kids.

The companion museum in Northern Virginia called the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy opened in 2003 and it’s bigger than the DC location.

Links:  Official website of the National Air and Space Museum

           Official You Tube channel of the Air and Space Museum

Pope-Leighey House

Woodlawn, an early 19^th century mansion shares its property with one built in the 20^th, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey house, named for the two families that owned it. By the early 1900’s Wright had expressed his interest in designing low-cost housing for ordinary Americans. This idea led him to design what he called “Usonian” homes; some sixty were built between 1936 and 1959 including the Pope-Leighey.

In the late 1930’s, Lauren Pope was a $50-a-week copy editor at the Washington Star. He wrote a letter to Wright asking if he would design a house for property that Pope had purchased in Falls Church. Wright, then in his early seventies, agreed and the house was built for just over $7000 (the original target was $5k) in 1940-41. The Pope’s lived in the house for six years, had several children and needing more room, sold it to Robert and Marjorie Leighey in 1947. Some 17 years later, the expansion of Highway 66 was going to go right through the Leighey’s property, so in an effort to preserve the house, Marjorie Leighey gave it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The house was relocated to the the Woodlawn property in 1965 and Mrs. Leighey continued to live in the home until she died in 1983. Due to a problem with the soil, the house was moved again in 1995 about thirty feet to its present site.

Pope-Leighey House, Alexandria, Virginia

It’s a small house, some 1200 square feet and looks kind of rustic from the outside due to the weathering of the Tidewater red cypress that Wright used along with brick and glass for the construction. Wright liked the cypress because it was durable and resistant to insects (no termites), but on the outside the wood is completely unfinished. The house is flat-roofed and one section of the roof juts out over the front door which is the carport, there’s another large overhang from the roof over the back bedroom. One of the most interesting design features are the small windows with geometric abstract designs that run just below the roof line around much of the house and in one vertical panel in the living room.

Inside the cypress is rubbed with wax and it gives the interior a rich, warm feeling. Wright wanted those living in the house to appreciate the wood paneling, there are no pictures hanging anywhere. Visitors on the tour can sit in the living room, (the couches are reproductions) which feels spacious due to the 11 ½ foot ceiling; the ceilings in the rest of the house are lower. There’s a large built-in bookcase on the back wall and the dining area nearby has full-length glass windows that open up on to the back yard. Wright used plywood, a new material in the 40s, for the furniture and the kitchen cabinets, which he also designed. The hallway with the two bedrooms feels cramped (not unusual for a Wright house), and there’s a small den in the front of the house.

The well-informed tour guide takes visitors through the house in half an hour. The official website is here and there are a couple of good articles here and here about the house and some good photos here. Wright designed two other houses in the DC area, one in Bethesda and one in McLean, both of which are currently residences. And of course his masterpiece, Fallingwater, is a mere four hour drive for those who need more, or have it on their architectural bucket list.

Links: Official website of Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House
          Virginia Living article
          Interview with Loren Pope at the National Building Museum website
          Peter Beers photos of the Pope-Leighey House
          Official website of Fallingwater

       
          

Woodlawn Plantation

Woodlawn, Alexandria, Virginia

There are a number of historic homes in the D.C. area, the most famous of which is Mount Vernon. And, nearby GW’s crib in Alexandria are several other historic homes including Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House. They both sit on the same property, so visiting them is sort of a package deal and makes it one of the more unusual historic and architectural house museum properties in the country. This post will be about Woodlawn and I’ll discuss the FLW (Frank Lloyd Wright) house in the next.

   
The Woodlawn property was owned by George Washington and in his will he gave 2000 acres and money to build a mansion to Major Lawrence Lewis and Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis, his nephew and step- granddaughter. Lewis and Nelly were married in 1799 and the house was completed in 1805. Washington had asked he first architect of the U.S. Capitol, William Thornton to design the mansion which has both elements of Georgian and Federal styles. 

   
The mansion’s most distinctive design features are the two wings connected by hyphens (connecting hallways) coming out from each side of the core block of the house. The wings originally housed the kitchen and plantation office. Originally the hyphens were simple covered walkways, but renovations in the early 20th century raised the hyphens by half a story to create more rooms. The visitor entrance and gift shop are housed in the left (north) hyphen as you approach the house from the parking lot.

   
Inside, the main block of the house is decorated with period furniture. The formal parlor and dining room are on the south side of the central hall and Thornton designed the parlor with a higher ceiling for proper acoustics; it is referred to as the Music Room. The tour takes visitors up the main staircase, which makes a beautiful oval shape when looking down from second floor. The Marquis de Lafayette stayed in the house on his return visit to the U.S. in 1824 and a travelling desk that belonged to him is set up in one of the upstairs bedrooms. There’s a lot of good information about the architecture online here in Woodlawn's National Historic Landmark Nomination paperwork.
   
Some 90 slaves would have worked on the property during the Lewis’s time, but when Quakers bought the property in 1847, they wanted to show that abolition wouldn’t destroy the Southern economy and that successful farms could be run without slave labor. Whites and free blacks, some former slaves from Mount Vernon, owned and worked the plots at Woodlawn and a Quaker meeting and school used part of the house. The article here points to research done about Woodlawn during the Civil War indicating that the farmers formed their own militia to protect against raiders from both armies.
   
After several other owners, The National Trust for Historic Preservation leased Woodlawn in 1951 and then in 1957 purchased it. The mansion was opened for tours in 1952 making it the National Trust’s first historic house museum. The National Trust is now working with an organization called Arcadia (their website is here) that is using some of Woodlawn’s land for a sustainable food and farming project. Visitors can see the garden from the driveway when pulling into the property.
   
The tour guide was very knowledgeable and the tour was about 45 minutes. Both houses are open for tours Friday through Monday from 12 noon to 4pm. The cost for touring both Woodlawn and the Pope-Leighey House is $15 and the official website for both houses is here. You can see more photos of Woodlawn online here and here.
   
The two other closest historic sites are Mount Vernon and Gunston Hall, George Mason’s home. You could certainly visit Woodlawn & Pope Leighey and Gunston Hall in the same day and really half a day if you pushed it. And at Woodlawn you are less than ten miles south of historic Alexandria with lots of historic sites and places to eat.

Links: Official website for Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House
          Woodlawn National Historic Landmark Nomination
          Arcadia website
          National Trust article about Woodlawn
          Architects Design blog photos of Woodlawn
          Colinspics photos of Woodlawn